Fifteen-year-old Kate was quite content with her life in Scrooby as long as she could spend much of her time out of doors, helping with the apple gathering, wandering through the meadows, or chasing rabbits. Her older sister Meg had suddenly grown too dignified for all this, choosing to bide indoors with her distaff and embroidery frame, and Kate suspected it was all the fault of Gervase Neville who was courting Meg.

Busy with her new-found friends, Felicity and Hugh Fitzhugh, Kate did not at first realize that Meg has changed in other ways as well. But when Meg defied her father, for the first time in her life, and joined the small congregation who wished to separate from the King's Church and who held services in secret at Scrooby Manor, Kate felt as though she no longer knew her own sister. Instead of a closely-knit family, Kate now felt there were undercurrents too deep for her understanding, and she resented it. Then Gerry Neville went with the first group of separatists who tried to reach Holland, and Meg gave him her promise to wait for him. Slowly, as she learned of the hardships and sacrifices of these brave people, Kate began to understand what they believed in so passionately, and by the time her father and mother had decided they too must leave their home in England for a new life in Holland, Kate was prepared. This is history come alive.

Kate Seredy, who also made the pictures for Miss Daringer's previous books, Adopted Jane and Mary Montgomery, Rebel has caught the spirit of the period and its people in her pen and ink drawings.

From the dust jacket